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Glittering generalities (also called
glowing generalities) are emotionally appealing
words so closely associated with highly-valued concepts and beliefs
that they carry conviction without supporting information or
reason. Such highly-valued concepts attract general approval and
acclaim. Their appeal is to emotions such as love of country and
home, and desire for peace, freedom, glory, and honor. They ask for
approval without examination of the reason. They are typically used
by politicians and propagandists.

Qualities

Words and phrases such as "common good", "change", "courage", "democracy", "freedom", "hope", "patriotism", "strength", are terms that
people all over the world have powerful associations with, and they
may have trouble disagreeing with them. However, these words are
highly abstract and ambiguous, and
meaningful differences exist regarding what they actually mean or
should mean in the real world. George Orwell described such words at
length in his essay "Politics and the English Language":

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and
literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which
are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic,
plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality,
as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense
that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are
hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic
writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living
quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing
about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts
this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white
were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he
would see at once that language was being used in an improper way.
Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning
except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The
words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic,
justice have each of them several different meanings which
cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like
democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the
attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost
universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are
praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime
claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop
using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of
this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is,
the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows
his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements
like "Marshal Pétain was a
true patriot," "The Soviet press is the freest in the world," "The
Catholic Church is opposed to persecution," are almost always made
with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in
most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian,
science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

The most prominent usage of glittering generalities is in the
fields of political campaigning and advertising.